The case was being heard by Judge Colin Birss at the Patents County Court in London after 26 people that received the demands refuted the claims and refused to pay up.

But solicitor Andrew Crossley, the head of ACS Law told Judge Birss that he wanted to withdraw all of the cases and claimed to have received death threats.

Now Judge Birss has given MediaCAT and the copyright owners involved 14 days to join the action before it faces being struck out.

Judge Birss had been concerned that if the case was simply allowed to drop when ACS Law pulled out, the defendants could have had the action resurrected by another firm representing the copyright holders.

Sometimes, the power of the mainframe is the most cost effective answer. Computing's Peter Gothard puts Computing's readers' questions on the future of the mainframe to IBM's Z13 expert Steven Dickens.